This study argues that late medieval English 'mystery plays' were about masculinity as much as Christian theology, modes of devotion, or civic self-consciousness. Performed repeatedly by generations of merchants and craftsmen, these Biblical plays produced fantasies and anxieties of middle class, urban masculinity, many of which are familiar today.

CHRISTINA FITZGERALD is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Toledo in Ohio, USA.

Introduction Men in the Household, Guild, and City The Domestic Scene: Patriarchal Fantasies and Anxieties in the Family and Guild Male Homosocial Communities and Public Life Acting Like a Man: Christ and Masculinity